


barefoot on the grass, listening to our favourite song

by daisylincs



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dancing, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Love, Softness, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, missing moment, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/pseuds/daisylincs
Summary: Daisy shifted on her spot, scowling into her stack of folders. "The work needs to be done, okay?""The work does need to be done," Lincoln agreed, releasing her wrists in favour of resting his hands on her shoulders, "but not when you've exhausted yourself half to death."He squeezed her shoulders gently, massaging the knots there with experienced fingers, until eventually, and very reluctantly, Daisy glanced up to meet his gaze.Just like she had known he would be, he was wearing that compassionate expression again. "You're not helping anyone if you're going to be falling asleep on missions," he pointed out. "You need to help people, yeah, it's what you do, and it'sincredible- but you also need to take care of yourself. And that means letting yourself off when you need it."Or: Daisy has been working herself down to the bone lately, but Lincoln is determined to get her to relax and take care of herself. And who knows? Maybe they'll have aperfectnight yet...
Relationships: Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	barefoot on the grass, listening to our favourite song

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo, everyone, and guess who’s here feeling rather proud of herself that her plan to cross of WIPs with the Marvel Fluff Bingo is actually working? That’s right, it’s me :D :D 
> 
> I’ve actually had this little piece written for a couple of days now, but I wanted to wait until today to post it, because - the **f** irst of **F** e **b** seems like a good date to post my **f** irst **f** luff **b** ingo fic, right? Fksfjsdfjsdfjsd, I’m such a dork sometimes, oh my GOSH 🤣🤣🙈 - but, my friends, if like me you’ve been having pretty tough/busy 2021s so far, and you’d like the chance to escape into pure fluff and smiles for a moment… well, that’s exactly what this little fic is. I hope you enjoy it!! 💜

"Daisy, do you have a moment?" 

Daisy paused at the sound of Lincoln's voice, shifting the stack of folders she was carrying onto her other arm and biting her lip. The word _"no"_ came easily to her lips - but then she made the mistake of half-turning around so she could see him from the corner of her eye, jogging up the corridor to meet her with a bright, hopeful sparkle in his blue eyes… 

"Of course I have a moment," she said, shifting the folders more firmly onto her hip and feeling a tired but warm smile tug at the corners of her lips. "Why?" 

She had slowed her paces, and Lincoln caught up to her easily, his blue eyes bright as he grinned down at her. "Because I'm here to get you to take a break." 

Her smile froze, and she tightened her grasp on the folders, quickening her pace again. "No," she said, her voice coming out a lot sharper than she had been expecting. 

Lincoln, curse his stupid tall-person long legs, kept pace with her easily. "Yes," he argued, and _oh,_ how she hated the note of quiet, compassionate concern in his voice. 

She walked faster still, deliberately keeping her eyes on the rough brown flooring of the Playground and practically shoving him away with her shoulder. _"No."_

He took a few long, determined strides until he was standing in front of her, blocking her way - again, _curse_ tall people - and crossed his arms, meeting her gaze directly. "Daisy, it's ten o'clock."

"Seriously?" she asked, caught off guard for just a second. Where had the time gone? It had been seven just a minute ago, when she had promised Jemma she wouldn't forget to get dinner… 

But she recovered quickly. So _what_ if it was late? People's lives were worth more than her sleep schedule, surely? 

Stepping forward, she tried to push past Lincoln, using the files as a blocker between them - but instead of letting her pass, he caught her wrists, gently but firmly holding her in place. 

"Daisy, you're going to run yourself _ragged,"_ he said, and there was that note of sincere concern and _caring_ in his voice again. 

God, she hated it so much - especially the way it made her entire heart leap and flutter, and a feeling like a thousand giddy, joyful butterflies soar through her body. 

She needed to _work,_ dammit, not… flit around like a butterfly in a sunshine-dappled field on a golden summer's day, with a vivid blue sky above her and birds singing in the little copse of trees off to her left - 

Yeah, she really needed to _not do that,_ and the sky-blue colour of his eyes (and the soft, tender affection in them as he looked down at her) was really _not helping._

"You're going to run yourself ragged, Daisy," he repeated, giving her wrists a gentle squeeze. "And I know you don't want to hear this, but it's _not_ going to help anyone. And… what happened with Charles Hinton was _not_ your fault." 

Daisy's grip on the folders was so tight now that the binders of the file on top of the stack were pressing little circles into her palm. "You're right," she bit out. "I don't want to hear it." 

"Well, maybe you need to," he said, meeting her gaze with frank blue eyes. 

_Unfair,_ she thought as her heart skipped a beat. 

"Listen, I know you want to help, and I admire you for it, so much, but…" He squeezed her hands again, his gaze full of that utterly heart-melting, butterfly-soar-inducing mixture of compassion and concern again. "Even the most badass superheroes need to rest sometimes."

"I do -" she started, but he cut her off with a quick shake of his head. 

"Protein shakes and excessive amounts of caffeine at midnight do _not_ count as breaks, Dais," he said firmly. 

She crossed her arms over the folders, glaring at the wall over his shoulder. "How did you know about the protein shakes?" 

"We share a room, remember?" he pointed out wryly. "Besides, you're a _slob,_ and you're worse when you're overtired and hungry because you forgot to grab dinner." His disapproving gaze let her know exactly what he thought of _that_ particular habit of hers. 

Daisy shifted on her spot, scowling into her stack of folders. "The work needs to be done, okay?" 

"The work does need to be done," Lincoln agreed, releasing her wrists in favour of resting his hands on her shoulders, "but not when you've exhausted yourself half to death." 

He squeezed her shoulders gently, massaging the knots there with experienced fingers, until eventually, and very reluctantly, Daisy glanced up to meet his gaze. 

Just like she had known he would be, he was wearing that compassionate expression again. "You're not helping anyone if you're going to be falling asleep on missions," he pointed out. "You need to help people, yeah, it's what you do, and it's _incredible -_ but you also need to take care of yourself." 

"And that means letting yourself off when you need it," he continued, his expression so achingly tender that her heart gave a longing throb. "What happened with Charles Hinton was terrible, but it _wasn't your fault._ There was nothing more you could've done, and there's nothing more you can do now."

"But I can make sure nothing like that ever happens again," she countered, her voice ringing with a determined kind of steel that she recognised from May's training mats. 

Lincoln nodded, his expression completely frank and open. "You definitely can," he agreed. "But you just as definitely _can't_ do it if you're about to pass out from pushing yourself so hard." 

"I'm not going to pass out," she said stubbornly, folding her arms more tightly over her files. 

Lincoln gave her a long, flat look. "I'm a _doctor,_ Daisy, trying to argue with me about _that_ isn’t going to go anywhere." 

“Fine,” she huffed, conceding that point. He was just as bad as Jemma sometimes, _honestly_ \- she could swear the two of them egged each other on!

Maybe they had… _let’s-overwhelm-Daisy-with-concern-and-caring-but-also-medical-advice_ workshops on all those Saturday afternoons they spent holed up together in the lab.

(Dammit, she should never have nagged the two of them until they agreed to spend that first Saturday together.) 

“Look, Daisy,” Lincoln said, voice tender, pulling her from her mutinous thoughts as he squeezed her shoulders gently. “I’m not asking you to go to bed before twelve -” the wry look in his blue eyes told her that he would have _loved_ to ask that, but unfortunately he happened to know her too well by now “- I’m just asking you to take half an hour off and come have dinner with me in the common room.”

His blue eyes were both earnest and full of caring, and, _dammit,_ how was Daisy supposed to resist an expression like that? 

As though he could tell she was close to caving - which, curse him for the third time tonight, he probably _could_ \- he added with a flash of quick, dry humour, “Besides, I specially got Jem to heat up one of her mum’s cottage pies for us to share.”

Daisy made a little growling noise as she very deliberately slammed down the stack of folders on the corner seat next to her. “You saved that for last just because you knew I wouldn’t be able to say no, didn’t you?” she accused. 

Lincoln grinned down at her, his eyes alight with an infectious happy amusement, and though he was officially the _worst,_ Daisy couldn’t help smiling along.

“Yes, yes I did,” he said, leaning down to kiss her forehead. 

Daisy huffed and plastered on her best scowl to hide how much she was melting inside - forehead kisses were one of her weaknesses, and _Lincoln,_ damn damn _damn_ all their lazy Sunday afternoons playing (and in her case, horribly losing) board games in her bunk, had discovered that particular soft spot when he had leaned over to console her over yet another loss.

And now, of course, he used it at every possible opportunity. 

“You drive a hard bargain,” she informed him, poking him hard in the chest. 

But instead of looking even _remotely_ threatened, Lincoln just grinned and caught her hand, lacing his fingers with hers and tugging once at their joined hands to get her to fall into step with him. 

She made another valiant effort at scowling, but barely a second later she was leaning into his side, untangling their fingers so she could wrap her arm comfortably around his waist. He reciprocated the gesture immediately, which allowed her to tuck herself a little more snugly into his side, and they walked down the corridors like that, all the way down from the briefing rooms to the lounge.

And sure enough, carefully covered with a tea-towel to keep it warm, and with a little note pinned to its side that read _Enjoy!_ in Jemma’s neat handwriting, was a large dish of Mrs Simmons’ cottage pie. 

Jemma’s mum’s cottage pie was a _legend_ on base - in fact, it was somewhat infamous, given that it was the instigator of multiple ferocious fights, including no less than twelve Hunter-Bobbi rows, five “accidental” attacks by “misprogrammed” DWARVES, two cases of panic attacks in junior agents from May’s glares, one shotgun-axe testing run, and, uh, multiple base-quaking incidents.

Case in point: the pie was _really_ good, and Daisy was speaking as someone who didn’t even really like pie all that much.

Now, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she dished out two plates of pie, adding an extra dollop of mashed potatoes to Lincoln’s the way he liked it _(dork,_ she thought fondly), and carrying them both over to the couch where he was already waiting for her, a warm, affectionate smile on his face.

“Scooch,” she said, prodding him with her toe. 

Obligingly, he budged over, and she dropped into the seat next to him, handing him his plate and feeling her smile melt into something so soft and warm that it would have gotten her mocked for _years_ if Fitz had ever seen. 

Someone - probably Mack, he was a surprising romantic like that - had left the radio on in the corner of the lounge, and since it was that time of the night, there was a soft, crooning love song on at the moment. For the rest of it, though, the base was completely silent, just the quiet _clink_ s of their cutlery against their plates and the gentle inhale, exhales of their breathing as they sat next to each other on the couch. 

Finishing her meal in record time, Daisy leaned her head against Lincoln’s shoulder and thought, _I could get used to this._

Sure, she had work to do, and a ton of it, but… maybe he was right, it _was_ good to take some time off for herself every now and then. 

Not that she’d ever admit it to him, of course, she’d _never_ get him and Jemma - and their _sciencey smugness,_ God forbid - off her back.

But leaning against him now, the soft, comforting smell of his blue sweater filling her nose, and his heartbeat thrumming reassuringly beneath her cheek, she thought that this moment couldn’t get much more perfect.

And right _as_ she thought that -

 _I found a love_  
_For me_  
_Darling just dive right in…_

Daisy couldn’t help it. She laughed, burying her head into Lincoln’s soft sweater and nearly knocking the plate off his lap with her knee. 

_Perfect,_ she thought, trying and failing to swallow another helpless round of giggles. _I had to go thinking about this being perfect…_

“Well, now it is,” Lincoln said aloud, and she pulled back to gape at him, her brain catching up mid-giggle and leaving her gaping like a rather undignified goldfish in a SHIELD jacket and sweatpants.

“Are you _sure_ your Inhuman power isn’t mind-reading?” she asked when she had managed to pick her jaw up from the floor, giving him a fond punch in the shoulder.

He shook his head playfully, sending a surge of tickly sparks shooting up her arm and shooting through her body. “Pretty sure, yeah,” he said, his eyes dancing with amusement as he watched her dissolve into another fit of giggles. 

(Ah, yes, another one of her weaknesses - _ticklishness._ This damn man was determined to be perfect for her, wasn’t he?

 _Perfect,_ ugh…) 

“Seriously, though,” she asked when she had finished sending a small revenge quake his way, “how did you know?” 

He straightened up from ducking said quake, and his eyes were soft and warm as he looked across at her, meeting her gaze. “Because I feel the same way.” 

Before she could finish melting into a warm, sappy little puddle at those words, he stood up suddenly and reached for her hands, pulling her up into a standing position along with him. “Dance with me?” 

Daisy hesitated, chewing her lip as she thought of the stack of folders she had left so unceremoniously on a chair in the corridor. “I should probably…”

But then she made the mistake of catching his eye, and the impossibly tender look there, combined with Ed Sheeran’s lilting voice promising _I will not give you up this time,_ did her in completely. 

“Okay,” she agreed, and she wasn’t even _trying_ to pretend annoyance now, she was just… smiling. Smiling, and stepping into his arms, and swaying to the slow-dance rhythm of the song, just the two of them in their plain SHIELD jackets and sweatpants, the lounge mostly dark except for the faint golden glow coming from the kitchens.

 _Your heart is all I own,_  
_And in your eyes you’re holding mine…_

Lincoln was _singing,_ she realised with a start, a little gruff and tentative, but he was definitely singing along to the lyrics.

And he could… he could _actually_ sing.

Not professionally, of course, but he’d totally be able to give Mack a run for his money on karaoke night, and… 

She’d never known!

She was so surprised, so _stunned,_ that it took her a moment to realise what exactly he was singing, to process what exactly he was doing with the lyrics.

 _Daisy, I’m_  
_Dancing in the dark_  
_With you between my arms_  
_Barefoot on the grass_  
_Listening to our favourite song_  
_When you said you looked a mess_  
_I whispered underneath my breath_  
_You heard it_  
_Daisy, you look perfect tonight_

She couldn’t keep the low, incredulous laugh from her lips any longer - and also, there _may_ have been tears pricking at her eyes. Just. You know. _Maybe._

“I had no idea you could sing like that!” she exclaimed as the bridge played through, and he spun her into a long, slow dip. “And it’s not… it’s not true, you know. I’m very far from perfect.” 

“Oh, I know,” he agreed solemnly, his hand warm against her back as he guided her out of the dip and back against him, their chests pressed together. “You’re one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met. And you don’t take care of yourself.” 

Gasping in outrage, she shoved her palm against his chest, adding the tiniest quake to her punch for a little extra force.

He just laughed into it, adjusting his grip on her hand so their fingers were tangled together. “Seriously, though,” he said, leaning down to bump his nose against hers. “That’s not what this is about?” 

“Oh?” she murmured, pulling her gaze reluctantly away from his lips to meet his gaze. “What is it about?” 

“Us,” he said simply, leaning down with her when he dipped her low again. “It’s about us. _God_ knows I’m not a perfect person, Daisy, I’m so far from it that you wouldn’t even find me in the same half of the dictionary… But it’s not _about_ that, not right now, not here.” 

“It’s just about _us,”_ he repeated, emphasizing that word again. “And how, right now, I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about this moment.” 

He raised his eyebrows at her, and there was the smallest hint of vulnerability in his blue gaze. “Would you?” 

“Not for the world,” she breathed.

Lincoln grinned, and it was a dazzling thing, the kind of grin that radiated pure and utter _happiness._ “Then that’s the point,” he said simply. 

“I guess it is,” Daisy agreed, and then she was grinning too, grinning in a way she couldn’t remember _ever_ grinning because of a romantic partner before, guy or girl… 

When the chorus came back on, she joined him, delighting in the look of surprise and affection that bloomed in his eyes as their voices merged and flowed over each other, caressing the song’s slow, gentle harmonies. 

They finished it together, soft and low and full of love - _“Darling, you look perfect tonight.”_

And he did. 

She did. 

They did. 


End file.
